Encyclopedia of the

Embargoes and Sanctions - Post–cold war sanctions

With the end of the Cold War, the United States had greater success in
persuading other nations to join it in imposing sanctions against
terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and violations of human rights. Rival
powers on the UN Security Council no longer automatically vetoed
sanctions that affected their respective allies. The two most prominent
crises in which broad multilateral sanctions played a major role were
the Gulf War of 1991 and the meltdown of the former Yugoslavia.
Sanctions in these cases succeeded in devastating the economies of the
two rogue nations at the center of the crises, Iraq and Serbia. But in
the end it took military force to compel the leaders of those countries
to make major changes of policy.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United States and the UN Security
Council sanctioned all Iraqi trade and financial aid. But Saddam Hussein
defied the bans and received substantial supplies through sympathetic
Palestinians in Jordan. He also made a firm peace with Iran, thus
securing his borders. As Saddam showed no signs of relenting on Kuwait,
President George Bush began pushing his allies for military action. Many
American leaders, including the former chairman of Reagan's joint
chiefs of staff, Admiral William Crowe, argued that continuing sanctions
might well force Saddam to settle without further bloodshed.
Bush's own joint chiefs, led by General Colin Powell, were also
reluctant to go to war, but were willing to do so if overwhelming force
were used to avoid another Vietnam. Bush agreed, and the resulting
Operation Desert Storm routed Saddam's army. But the allied
armies stopped before taking Baghdad or capturing Saddam himself. They
then signed an agreement with Saddam that restored Kuwait's
border and permitted inspections to ensure the dismantling of all Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam defied those agreements, and the United States and the United
Nations continued their sanctions to try to bring him into line.
Nevertheless, Saddam held out for more than a decade while the sanctions
regime slowly declined. The United States and its allies exempted some
Iraqi oil from the sanctions under strict controls to see that the money
was used for humanitarian purposes within Iraq and to compensate Kuwait
for war damages. But Saddam managed to divert some of that aid to
maintaining his regime. He also smuggled oil, with the cooperation of
Iran and others, to keep himself afloat. Meanwhile, Russia, France, and
other nations pressed for further loosening or even ending the
sanctions, on the grounds that Saddam had sufficiently conformed to his
agreements and that the embargoes bore most heavily on innocent
civilians.

Multilateral sanctions also played a major part in the Balkan crises of
the 1990s. After the death of Tito, Slobodan Milosevic began appealing
to Serbian nationalism as a substitute for the collapsing communist
ideology that previously had sustained his position. As a result of
growing Serb militancy, Slovenia, Croatia, and then Bosnia declared
their independence. Milosevic used his control of the Yugoslav army and
heavy weapons to invade Bosnia and Croatia in support of the Serb
inhabitants of those areas. He then expelled or massacred all non-Serbs
in the conquered areas, in a program dubbed "ethnic
cleansing." The Croats and Muslims often returned the favor of
ethnic cleansing when they had the chance, but the imbalance of power
gave them fewer of those opportunities.

The United States under George H. W. Bush left the Europeans to furnish
a few thousand UN troops to deliver humanitarian aid to besieged areas
while America led the Security Council to impose an economic blockade of
Serbia. By 1994, the blockade had worn Milosevic down to the point that
he deserted the Bosnian Serbs and joined the embargo against them in
hopes of getting the sanctions lifted against Serbia. But the Bosnian
Serbs refused to quit. In July 1995, they brushed aside a UN force
protecting the sanctuary of Srbrenica, massacred the adult males, and
brutalized many others. Finally, the United States and NATO began a
major bombing campaign that, combined with pressure from a rejuvenated
Croat army, forced Milosevic to the peace table. At Dayton, Ohio, in
November 1995, Bill Clinton succeeded in hammering out a peace agreement
to be enforced by an enlarged UN contingent to which the United States
would contribute one-third of the troops.

Milosevic, however, began a similar ethnic cleansing program in Kosovo
in 1998. Despite the reluctance of Russia, the NATO allies restored
sanctions against Milosevic. They eased them when he agreed to negotiate
with the Kosovar Muslims, but nothing came of the talks, and Milosevic
resumed military activities in Kosovo. It was clear to all that mere
sanctions would not change Milosevic's policy, so NATO resorted
to threats, and finally the use of force. A devastating ten-week bombing
campaign ultimately brought Milosevic to retreat from Kosovo in favor of
a UN peacekeeping force that included U.S. troops.

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